Secret Search for Public Editor

by Editor
February 22, 2016 at 10:49 pm

https://www.smartertimes.com/1473/secret-search-for-public-editor

A Times report on the news that the public editor, Margaret Sullivan, will become a columnist of the Washington Post includes this language: "Ms. Sullivan assumed her role at The Times in 2012, and her tenure was scheduled to end in August." August 2015? August 2016? It isn't clear from the Times article.

The article goes on:

In a memo to the staff, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., The Times's publisher, praised Ms. Sullivan, saying she had "ushered the position into a new age."

He said that she would remain at the paper for "a number of weeks" and that the search for a successor was underway. "We will be in a position to name Margaret's successor very soon," he wrote.

If this search is "underway," it seems to be without any public posting of the position on the careers section of the Times web site. Running a private search for the public editor job is the sort of thing that, if another organization did it, the Times would probably condemn it as an example of filling a position through the old boys network rather than through the sort of rules-based, transparent process that is more likely to give underrepresented or nontraditional (maybe even politically conservative!) job candidates an equal opportunity for consideration. If the posting ever does materialize, it may be merely pro forma, giving the Times the appearance of complying with equal opportunity hiring practices without really doing that.

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